I just had to reinstall my C drive in one of my pcs. OF course this is a very time consuming task, but not nearly as time consuming as looking for all my program cd's that grew legs and disapperead! ie SONY VEGAS, PHOTOSHOP, FRONTPAGE etc.

It got me to thinking and wondering, If I create a folder on an exteral drive-or partition one of the other drives in the PC. Can i make a folder for each CD and Copy the complete contents of the software CD/DVD to that folder and then install it from there?

For example, I would copy my Photoshop CD's (all 3 of them) into one folder. Then when it came time to find them again for reinstall I would simply click setup from this hard drive.

It sure would eliminate hunting for those CD's that always seem to disappear!

Yes what you are describing works fine... its the same thing as loggin on to Adobe and
downloading the programs...

If you plan on doing this you should create a file that also contains the registration codes...

that way if and when you need to re-install and the installation asks for the codes you will
have them there too...

registration code! great point! do u think i can copy my windows xp OS disk to a file in the same way? im thinking to burn a cd from if i neeed to reinstall and boot from cd

Instead of going to all this trouble, why not just buy a PC backup program which will make an image of your hard drive on a cheap external drive? I use Macs most of the time, but I'm sure such a thing exists for XP.

Windows XP comes with a backup application. It's in the Accessories\System program menu.

Norton Ghost is also a great option. I create an image of the OS drive.

I use ACRONIS for complete disk imaging. What i am trying to accompolish here is having all my program disk on 1 external Hard Drive.

I dont know about you, but where i live these lil bugggers grow legs and seem to walk away. Never move two times in 6 months!

it can be done but make sure you have the EXE and INSTALL and any other files you need to install and register the program otherwise...